Don't Fence Me In: An American Teenager in the Holocaust by Barry Spanjaard

Author:Barry Spanjaard [Spanjaard, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: History
ISBN: 0960700803
Publisher: B&B Publishing
Published: 2011-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

9. TRANSIT LIFE GOES ON

We arrived at the station, and again a passenger train was waiting for us. The service was always free, no waiting, and always on time.

On the way to the station, some people in our group managed to slip some letters to bystanders, and no one was caught. We had to fear being seen by our German escorts, and then there was the chance that a letter given to a stranger might be a member of the Dutch Nazi party, and then there would have been hell to pay.

After a few hours’ ride in the train, it was back to Westerbork, “home sweet home.” We were taken to barrack No.73; and were told it was a special barrack for Jews with foreign papers, men married to Gentile women, as well as Jews who had been baptized. Most of these baptized Jews had done so out of self-preservation, rather than religious beliefs. The Germans were aware of this, and if these people had not been baptized before a certain date, it didn’t help them. It was a new barrack and in good condition.

The next day I walked around the camp to find out what had happened while we were in Amersfoort. First of all, a lot of transports had come through during the past four weeks. About 10,000 people had been processed and sent on to Poland. About an additional thousand had arrived and been kept in Westerbork for various reasons. I found a lot of old friends I had not seen in a long time, who had arrived while I was away.

There were also many people I knew who had been caught from their underground hiding places, but they were placed in the feared “S” barrack.

As soon as I found out that a lot of Jews who had hidden had been picked up (most of them because someone had sold them out, for 7½ guilders-about $3), I immediately thought of Ellie, my old girl friend and co-star from Amsterdam. I went to the administration building to inquire about her and her family. Sure enough, their names were listed… they had come and gone while we were away. This pretty and lively little girl, whom I liked so much, was now gone forever, or so I thought at the time.

About five days after we had returned, I thought that it was time I got busy doing something, instead of aimlessly walking around all day. There was no school, and the days dragged on. Before I could do anything about it, I became quite ill with a high fever, and was sick for more than a week. After that, even though I was still very weak, I went to the building where they assigned work, an employment agency, with no fees and no salary. They sent me to the hospital to work as an orderly in the clinic.

My job consisted of cleaning glass microscope slides after they had been used for blood or urine tests. I also cleaned and sterilized test tubes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.